Thanksgiving is near, a time when friends and families gather around the table to celebrate many blessings.

There is something, however, in 23 Pennsylvania communities - including Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Allentown - that we should not be thankful for: "nuisance'' ordinances that threaten to evict domestic violence victims from their homes if they call the police multiple times to report an abusive partner.

These ordinances require landlords to evict tenants when police have been called to the tenant's home a certain number of times over a short period of time. Landlords who don't evict are faced with paying fines or losing their rental license.

As an advocate, I am heartened that a federal judge has dismissed the borough of Norristown's attempt to block a federal lawsuit challenging its nuisance ordinance. However, I am concerned that if the Norristown law is upheld at trial it could have a chilling effect on victims of domestic violence in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, of which Women's Resource Center is a member, has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the American Civil Liberties Union's federal lawsuit against Norristown. These statutes not only are unconstitutional, they punish the victims of domestic violence with eviction for seeking safety.

Nobody should ever have to choose between help and homelessness. But that's precisely the dilemma that was faced by Lakisha Briggs, 33, of Norristown. Borough officials sent letters to Briggs' landlord informing him that he needed to evict Ms. Briggs for violating Norristown's nuisance ordinance by placing too many calls to police.

Despite Briggs' attempts to be safe, her ex-boyfriend kept returning to her home. After he was released from jail, where he had been held because of one of the earlier calls to police, he went to Briggs' home and threatened to kill her. She asked him to leave, but he refused. Unable to remove him on her own, and afraid to call police because of the borough's eviction threat, she was trapped. A few weeks later, he brutally attacked Briggs, stabbing her in the neck with a shard of glass from an ashtray that shattered after he smashed it against her skull.

Briggs made the decision not to call the police for a fourth time and risk being evicted from her home. She passed out on the floor and was only saved when a neighbor called for help.

A Norristown municipal administrator learned of the incident and concluded that Briggs had violated the probationary period imposed by the borough after having placed three calls to police in April and May.

The ACLU and the Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton filed a lawsuit against Norristown on Briggs' behalf. Their complaint claims that the borough's ordinance violates the First Amendment right to petition the government, namely the police for assistance. The ordinance violates the federal Fair Housing Act and the Violence Against Women Act, which forbids acts or threats of domestic violence from being used to terminate Section 8 housing rights.

Studies demonstrate that domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness in Pennsylvania and across the United States. One study that examined homelessness across the nation revealed that as many as 57 percent of homeless women reported domestic violence to be the immediate cause of their homelessness. The lack of affordable housing compounds this problem. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the demand for affordable housing exceeds supply by about 4.5 million people.

The threat of homelessness explains why Briggs chose not to call the police even when her life was threatened.

In July, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey of Scranton sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, asking them to work together to educate communities about housing protections available to domestic violence victims under the Violence Against Women Act.

We applaud Mr. Casey's effort and we also commend state Rep. Todd Stephens (R-Montgomery) for introducing legislation to eliminate nuisance ordinances that would penalize victims of crime for seeking help from police.

November is a time to give thanks and to celebrate our communitarian ideals. Please call your state legislator to express support for legislation that ensures nuisance ordinances cannot be used to evict domestic violence survivors from their homes.

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